“He might like that you are.”
“But I’m not!”
Joanne blinked. “Aren’t you? I bloody would be.”
Elizabeth couldn’t help laughing at her friend’s fervor. She still regarded the evening that she’d been obliged to introduce Joanne to her vampire lover as the weirdest moment of her increasingly bizarre life. Saloman had arrived in her flat without warning two months ago, while she and Joanne had been putting the world to rights in the sitting room over a bottle of wine. He’d come through the kitchen window, but neither he nor Elizabeth had corrected Joanne’s assumption that he had his own key.
Joanne had watched their reunion with interest, clearly torn by conflicting desires to leave them alone and to discover more about Elizabeth’s mysterious lover. She’d compromised by subjecting Saloman to half an hour of penetrating questions—which he’d answered or deflected with equal amusement as the notion took him—and then departing earlier than she normally would.
“Fuck me, he’s gorgeous,” she’d informed Elizabeth at the front door. “No wonder you’re messed up.”
At the time, Elizabeth had jeered at the term “messed up,” for Saloman’s arrival had filled her with the complete happiness only he had ever brought her. But now, in his absence, she acknowledged her friend’s perception. She was messed up, had been since she’d first met him. But if Joanne knew the truth—that Elizabeth’s handsome and charming lover wasn’t merely mysterious, but also the most powerful vampire who’d ever existed—she wouldn’t put the cause down to his looks.
Joanne said, “So you’re hesitating over whether to apply for the job? Apply now and worry later.”
Elizabeth shifted in her seat. “Actually, I already applied. They’ve offered me the post. I just have to decide whether to take it.”
Joanne finished her coffee and set down her mug before rising to her feet. “Bite their hands off,” she advised, swinging her bag off the floor and onto her shoulder, to the imminent danger of the mugs that would undoubtedly have been knocked to the floor if Elizabeth hadn’t seized them out of harm’s way. Behind Joanne, a passing waiter stared at Elizabeth, wide-eyed. She must have moved too fast.
“I’ll miss you, of course,” Joanne added, oblivious to the entire incident.
“No, you won’t; you’ll come and visit me or I’ll never speak to you again.” Which was another point against accepting. In Budapest, Saloman’s own city, there would be untold distractions from the world of academia—leaving love out of it, there were vampires and hunters and an inevitable conflict waiting to erupt, which would place her squarely in the middle. Could she really hope to keep Joanne out of that?
But traipsing downstairs in her friend’s wake, Elizabeth couldn’t help feeling a secret leap of excitement at the prospect of moving to Hungary. Outside the Victoria Café, it was raining, a fine, misty drizzle that seemed to exemplify the Scottish summer. Dull.
“Well, back to the grindstone,” Joanne said happily enough. “What are you up to for the rest of the day?”
“I said I’d do a favor for a friend—visit this wounded soldier in Glasgow.”
“Badly wounded?” Joanne asked in quick sympathy.
“Badly enough, but he’s pretty well recovered physically. Apparently he’s still traumatized.”
“Sounds like a worthy but fraught day for you, then,” Joanne observed, lifting her hand in farewell. She was clearly anxious to get back to her books. Elizabeth watched her scuttle across Market Street with a feeling that came close to envy. Once, being lost in academia had been enough for Elizabeth too. And visiting an injured soldier would have aroused a much simpler compassion in her, without this guilty, nagging hope that because the British vampire hunters had asked her to go, he’d have something paranormally intriguing to say.
She was bored, she realized with some surprise. Achieving her doctorate had been satisfying; writing the book had been fun; research and teaching at some academic institution were still a necessary part of her ambitions, to say nothing about putting food on the table. Six months ago, desperately trying to keep her life stable and normal in the midst of unasked-for and unwanted new responsibilities and dangers, she wouldn’t have believed this was possible; yet now, perhaps influenced by her earlier shiver of anxiety, she actually missed the menacing world of darkness and vampires: a world in which her mind and body could both stretch without hindrance, and succeed.
She missed Saloman.
With the sound of the vampire’s preternatural scream splitting his ears, Senator Grayson Dante knew it had all gone horribly wrong. Dante thought back to the accounts he’d read of Saloman’s awakening, taken from Elizabeth Silk’s testimony. She too had found an empty underground chamber, except it had turned out not to be so empty. She’d been bleeding from a thorn prick and surmised that it was the drops of her blood that had first made the dead Saloman visible to her. She’d mistaken him for a stone sarcophagus.
Dante crouched down and delved into his bag to retrieve the vial of blood. It was a tiny amount, distilled from the stain of Saloman’s blood left on his shirt during their last violent encounter. He couldn’t afford to waste any. He was sure this room was enchanted, as the outer cave had been, to deter visitors. But simply staring wouldn’t break through this spell.
Dante unscrewed the lid with great care.
“What is that?” Mehmet, his Turkish guide, whispered.
It’s the blood of the Ancient vampire Saloman, with which I hope to awaken his cousin and enemy Luk, whom Saloman killed over three hundred years ago. Would Mehmet run or laugh if he said such a thing aloud? Instinctively, Dante knew his need for Mehmet was almost over. But only almost. The Turk had one more purpose to fulfill.
Dante crept around the dark chamber. The beam from his flashlight bobbed erratically around the rough stone floors and walls, barely penetrating the profound blackness more than a couple of feet beyond his unsteady fingers. He hoped that if he couldn’t see the body, at least he might feel it with his hands or feet. Even so, when his foot struck something it felt like stone, part of the floor’s uneven surface, and he almost paid it no attention. Then he paused and placed his finger over the vial’s opening before he shook it and removed his finger.
Drawing in his breath with a quick, silent prayer to no one in particular that it would be enough, he shook his whole hand out in front of him. His finger tingled as the tiny spatter of blood sprayed downward. And there in the darkness, without suddenness or shock, was what he’d been looking for all these weeks.
A stone table on which lay a sculpted body. Almost exactly as Elizabeth Silk had found the body of Saloman a year earlier.
Mehmet’s breath sounded like a wheeze. “My God, I almost didn’t see it. I thought there was nothing. . . . Is this it? Is this your nobleman’s tomb?”
“Almost certainly.” Dante felt dizzy. His whole body trembled, not just with reaction to his first glimpse of the deeply sinister figure illuminated by their flashlights, but with the enormity of what he was doing. He found it difficult to get the words out, and yet he had to concentrate, to ignore his sudden fears and stick to his plan. Mehmet had to continue to believe in the fiction that this was merely the lost tomb of a historic nobleman. And then, finally, Dante would reach his goal. Eternal life. Eternal power. Damnation, if it existed, was a small price to pay.
With carefully judged casualness, he passed the vial to Mehmet. “Here. I want to photograph this.”
Even shining his flashlight on the tiny drop of dark liquid, Mehmet could have no idea what it was. He seemed happy that Dante had found what he sought—even if only so that he could get back into the fresh air and climb down the mountain again.
Dante produced his camera and pointed it at the tomb. “When I say ‘now,’ ” he directed, “pour the contents of the vial over the carving.”
“Why, what is it?”
“It’ll make the tomb stand out more in the picture.” Dante lied easily. He wasn’t a politician for n
othing. “Okay . . . Now!”
Dante held his breath as Mehmet shook the tiny drops of liquid over the carved face. This was it, the moment of greatest risk and greatest hope, on which all Dante’s ambitions rested. Religion, decency, nature itself—none of those things counted beside the huge power Dante was about to take. . . .
At this point in the earlier awakening, Saloman had clamped his teeth into Elizabeth’s neck. Dante had been torn over this part of his plan. The blood used in the awakening had to be Saloman’s—Luk’s killer’s—or it wouldn’t work, but Dante didn’t know whether any of the mystical attributes of awakening would be bestowed on whoever did the pouring. No one had ever done it like this before, to his knowledge. If there was power to be had from awakening, he naturally wanted it for himself; but on the other hand, he needed Luk to be as strong as possible, which meant drinking the blood of his Awakener and killing him to absorb his life force. So far, Saloman had failed to kill Elizabeth, and therein lay his weakness. Dante did not intend for Luk to make the same mistake.
It was a pity for Mehmet.
Dante shone his flashlight unwaveringly on Luk’s dead face. It did indeed look like stone. He’d expected it to be more lifelike, to give some hint of his Ancient strength, a clue that he could be awakened. Tiny droplets of blood splashed on Luk’s cheek, his nose, lips, and chin. Nothing happened.
Oh fuck. It isn’t enough. After all this, I needed more blood. . . .
“Did you take it?” Mehmet asked.
“What? Oh, the photograph—yes, I got it. Thanks.” He took a step forward, meaning to take back the vial and see if there was anything at all left in it. But before he could touch it, a sound like a faint groan issued from the carving.
Oh, yes. Hallelujah.
Under Dante’s riveted gaze, the dead eyes of the sculpture opened; the lips parted. The skin moved, shifting slowly into an expression not of triumph but of shock. Even . . . fear. Luk sat up and Mehmet fell back with a low moan of terror. Luk’s twisted mouth opened wider, revealing his long, terrifying incisors as he stared at Mehmet.
The vampire’s scream started low, like a rattle in his throat, then rose quickly into the most horrific, gut-wrenching howl Dante had ever heard. Like all the pain of everyone in the world rolled into one pure, dreadful sound.
This isn’t meant to happen, Dante thought in panic. Something’s gone terribly wrong. I must have gotten the wrong vampire. . . .
Then, in fury, the creature who may or may not have been Luk swung himself off the stone table, and Dante stepped circumspectly behind Mehmet before giving the Turk a sharp, ungentle shove into the reaching arms of whatever they’d awakened.
Chapter Two
Apale, watery sunshine shone feebly down on the grounds of Glasgow’s Southern General Hospital, flickering intermittently through the ward windows and across the floor in front of Elizabeth as she made her way to Private John Ramsay’s room.
The British hunter, tied down in Cornwall tracking a bizarre but elusive vampire who seemed determined to introduce himself to every member of a village community, had sounded harassed when he’d asked her to get Ramsay’s story.
“It sounds like a mixture of fever dreams and trauma to me, but we’ve been asked to look into it, so see what you think.”
She’d been aware, then as now, that she was being used as a filter. The hunters, who were based in London, didn’t want to come all the way up here for nothing. If there was anything in Ramsay’s story, they’d make it their next assignment once the Cornish vampire was dealt with. If there wasn’t, they would simply report Elizabeth’s findings.
And Elizabeth was glad to help, not just because she was bored, but because she valued their trust, perhaps as a counterbalance to the growing distrust of her friends the Hungarian hunters, who’d recently discovered her relationship with Saloman, their greatest enemy.
The final room in the ward, to which she’d been directed, contained three beds. Two were empty, and the third was occupied by a fully dressed young man stretched out on the top of it, staring into space. His shaved head revealed a long red scar above his left ear. He wore a short-sleeved khaki T-shirt; no arm protruded from the left sleeve.
When Elizabeth gave a tentative knock on the open door, the young man’s eyes drifted toward her without much interest.
“Are you John Ramsay?” she asked hopefully.
“Aye.”
Ignoring the lack of encouragement in his curt response, she stepped inside the room and held out her hand.
“Hello. I’m Elizabeth Silk.”
The soldier glanced at her hand, and for a moment she thought he wouldn’t trouble to shake it. His eyes were unfriendly and cold as flint. In the end, he did lean forward and reach up with his remaining hand to take hers. It was firm but brief, and he fell back against the pillows with an odd expression of mocking tolerance on his young face.
“You another shrink?”
“Oh, no. I’m not a doctor at all.”
“Really? That why it says ‘Doctor’ on your label?”
Elizabeth frowned, trying to think what he meant, before she remembered the name tag she’d been given at reception. It hung around her neck, and when she picked it up and read it, she realized it did proclaim her to be Dr. E. Silk. Perhaps that was how the hunters had made the appointment for her so easily. There was clearly nothing wrong with Private Ramsay’s powers of observation.
“Ah. Well, I have a PhD, which gives me the title, but I’m not a medical doctor. I’m a historian.”
John Ramsay curled his lip. “I’m not history yet,” he observed, but a faint spark of interest did cross his face. “What do you want with me, then?”
“I was hoping you wouldn’t mind talking to me about what happened after the ambush.”
“So much for medical confidentiality.”
“I represent an organization that takes paranormal experiences very seriously.”
“Aye? Sure you don’t represent the News of the World?”
“Or any other newspaper,” Elizabeth said steadily. “I wouldn’t have been allowed to see you if I did.”
Ramsay shrugged. “Doesn’t matter anyway. My ‘experiences’ are post-traumatic stress and fever-induced dreams. Ask anyone.”
“I’d rather ask you. Will you tell me what happened ?”
“I got posted to Afghanistan. Helmand. We got ambushed, and I got my arm and half my head shot off. But I’m fine now. Waiting on redeployment.” He winked. “Helmand’s still favorite.”
Elizabeth sat down without invitation. “Will they really send you back there?”
Ramsay shrugged. “Why not? I’m a soldier.”
True, but surely they wouldn’t return him to the front line? The truly baffling thing was that he obviously wanted to go back. “How old are you, John?”
His eyes changed. “Twenty. What difference does that make?”
He was younger than some of her students last term. “None,” she said. “None at all. So what did you see after the attack? What do you remember?”
He looked at her, then let out a quick breath of laughter that lightened his too-harsh young face.
“What?” Elizabeth asked.
“I was just thinking: I’m used to telling this story to people who think I’m a nutter. Now I’m telling it to someone I think is a nutter.”
“Maybe neither of us is.”
“Maybe.” He shifted position with a twinge of pain that Elizabeth seemed to feel physically in her left arm. Irritated, she shook it, while John said, “What is this organization you represent? What do you do?”
“Primarily,” Elizabeth said, “we hunt down and kill vampires.”
With undisguised mockery, John looked her up and down, no doubt taking in the deceptively frail body and her careless, academic appearance: long red-blond hair imperfectly confined behind her head, well-worn jeans, and a comfortable if pretty secondhand top. She knew she didn’t look threatening, and John confirmed it.
&n
bsp; “Get many kills, aye?”
“Aye,” said Elizabeth, and unexpectedly, John grinned.
“Buggered if I know why, but I believe you,” he said. “You remind me of my English teacher in third year. She scared the shite out of me too.”
“Did she kill vampires?” Elizabeth asked lightly, playing along.
“Nah. I fancied her something rotten.”
Surprise at the implied compliment brought an annoying blush to Elizabeth’s cheeks. However, this seemed to give John some kind of reassurance, for without any further warning, he began to talk.
He spoke matter-of-factly, relating how he’d been on patrol when the ambush occurred. He’d been injured right away, his left arm shattered and his head bleeding profusely, but attempts to crawl to safety had been thwarted by his own dizziness as well as the intense firefight going on around him. By the time his comrades got to him, the Taliban were running, though from whom John hadn’t known—not until the majority of the British force had set off in pursuit and the comrades who’d stayed with him both lay dead.
“I saw them die. Two blokes in turbans just disarmed them, picked them up as if they were kids, bit them in the throat like dogs, and then threw them back on the ground. One said to the other, ‘Good blood.’ Only, the funny thing was, his lips didn’t move.”
Elizabeth leaned forward, frowning. “What language did he speak?”
John grimaced. “I don’t know. I can’t remember. I only remember the meaning. The shrinks reckon that proves I was dreaming.”
“It could mean he wasn’t speaking in words,” Elizabeth said slowly. “You could have heard him telepathically. Was he speaking to you?”
“Don’t know. His pal answered. I wasn’t in any condition for conversation. I don’t even remember exactly what they said after that. I just remember their voices going on all the time, arguing over me. One of them was scooping my blood off the ground with his fingers and licking them. I thought they were going to torture me before I died. Then . . .”
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